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Title: The Touchstone of Fortune

Author: Charles Major

Release Date: December 3, 2004 [eBook #14242]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TOUCHSTONE OF FORTUNE***

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THE TOUCHSTONE OF FORTUNE

Being the Memoir of Baron Clyde, who lived, thrived, and fell in the
Doleful Reign of the so-called Merry Monarch, Charles II

by

CHARLES MAJOR

Author of _When Knighthood Was In Flower_, etc.

1912

To My Wife

CHAPTER I

DAUGHTERS AND POVERTY

Goddess Fortune seems to delight in smiling on a man who risks his
all, including life, perhaps, on a desperate chance of, say one to one
hundred. If her Ladyship frowns and he loses, his friends call him a
fool; if he wins, they say he is a lucky devil and are pleased to share
his prosperity if he happens to be of a giving disposition. Lucky? No!
He has simply minted his courage.

The most remarkable illustration of these truths that has ever come to my
knowledge is my friend George Hamilton, the second son in this generation
of the illustrious House of Hamilton, Count Anthony being its present
head. The younger son was penniless save for the crumbs that fell from
his elder brother's table, and Count Anthony was one who kept an eye on
the crumbs.

George, who was of an independent nature, accepted Anthony's grudging
help reluctantly. Therefore when Charles II was restored to the English
throne in 1660, the younger Hamilton, who had been with the king in
exile, was glad to assume the duties of Second Gentleman of the
Bedchamber in Whitehall Palace. With the pension attached to this office,
winnings at cards and other uncertain revenues from disreputable sources,
George was enabled to maintain himself at court where debts were not
necessarily paid, where honesty and virtue were held in contempt, and
where vice of all sorts was not only the daily stock in trade but the
daily stock of jest and pleasure, boasting and pride; f